Two weeks have passed since I arrived in Accra to take up my field research on patterns of flood risk and adaptive capacity in the Densu Delta. I have spent the time establishing contacts to our partners at University of Ghana and to key organisations, and collecting background information from them. The university’s bookshop offers a number of treasures on social and ecological processes in Ghana, and I have made the first purchases for the WaterPower library. Two heavy rainstorms have already given me an idea of what triggers urban flooding in the rainy season – luckily these pre-seasonal rainfalls were too short to cause any incident. Even when not being new to Accra, the time needed to settle for several months is easily underestimated – learning the web of trotro (local buses‘) routes for instance appears like a never-ending story to me. Nevertheless, I feel now settled, and can’t wait to start interviewing and mapping in and around the Densu Delta. Meanwhile, the WaterPower team in Berlin is constantly growing. I am looking forward to coming to a house full of early career experts on urban water after my research stay.

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Author

These notes serve to share first impressions and reflections of field work linked to WaterPower, prior to any analysis. The author, Fanny Frick, is happy to receive any comments on: fanny.frick@geo.hu-berlin.de